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Naomi Osaka reveals there was a moment and time when she felt she would either have tp make it in pro tennis or end up homeless. Last year, Osaka landed on Forbes’ No 1 in the highest-paid female athlete category – the Japanese earned $53.2 million through prize money and endorsement deals in 2022.
But before Osaka became the highest-paid female athlete in the world, she and her family were struggling to make ends meet. “My parents weren’t exactly the richest, so what am I going to do? I’m not really the smartest. It’s either I have to be the best or I’m going to be homeless,” Osaka said in Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice, via The Daily Mail.
Osaka experienced poverty before becoming a multimillionaire star
Osaka’s tennis journey started in 1999, when her father Leonard Francois watched the French Open and got impressed by the story of Serena and Venus Williams.
Francois instantly started thinking how great it would be if his daughters Naomi and Mari could do something similar. Living in a poor Haitian neighborhood in New York, the family made a plan – Francois would teach his daughters tennis while their mother Tamaki would…
